No Blues (CD)

Los Campesinos!

Amoeba Review

11/11/2013

When Los Campesinos! came out in the late 2000s, you could either scoff or get swept up in their youthful energy—those exclamation marks, in their band name and song titles like “You! Me! Dancing!,” and a reliance on the kind of scrappy exuberance we’d barely seen since the days of ’80s college rock. But while the band has always hidden great songwriting chops underneath all that energy, only in the past few years have they become more obvious, on more mature releases like 2011’s Hello Sadness and now No Blues, another more morose record from the band that trades in naivete for wiser pop music informed by experience. This is no dour affair, though, despite titles like “What Death Leaves Behind”; that song rides high on a sing-songy synth line, while Garth Campesinos’ Robert Smith-esque vocals are expertly delivered—he still spits his syllables with urgency, but it stays in service of the song. While Los Campesinos are great at crafting singalong indie pop, they also up the atmospherics on songs like “Cemetery Gaits,” moving slowly into the song’s driving rhythm. (Did you know Los Campesinos! started as a post-rock band? Thanks, Wikipedia!) It’s great that with experience and age, Los Campesinos! haven’t dulled—they’ve sharpened their emotional tools, learning restraint can just make their songs hit even harder on No Blues.